Extreme monotheism as a human construct.

This morning I was reflecting on how unusual it is, in such a diverse and complicated world, to have the idea of only one god. This blog post outlines my musings and mental wanderings, it’s not theology and it’s not a portrayal of exactly what I think, more of what I was thinking this morning.

I think that Protestantism must be one of the only world views which excludes all other spiritual entities except God. (in this worldview, what is meant by the term God is usually the patriarchal, judgemental male sky deity often referred to as Father)

Polytheism recognises many gods, and their powers apparently work in the life of the devotee. When something is needed in life, such as prosperity or healing, she goes to the appropriate god, makes the right supplication, and her problem hopefully gets solved.

The mystics somehow retained a sense of the mystery and unknowable-ness of God, recognising that human thought and understanding could only go so far. As Meister Eckhart said, “You cannot think your way to God”. Unfortunately, established religion produced doctrines and assigned qualities to God, making a relationship with the Source of Life reliant on believing the correct things about him, and denying other things.

Whilst the ancient wisdom comes ultimately to the conclusion that God or Spirit is always going to be beyond our limited comprehension, religion spends a lot of time and energy working out exactly who God is. This then becomes a standard for judging who belongs to the “in-group”, and who is out, based on the facts they think they know about God. At it’s extremes, this tendency has led to the Inquisition (looking for heretics within the group of believers), and to such atrocities as the crusades (seeking to kill other humans because their limited understanding of a transcendent God is different to their own).

Now, it was the ancient Hebrews who really brought the idea of One God to the world stage. Although the idea of the unity of a Creator or Source of All Being was present in such philosophies as Taoism, early Hinduism etc, it was the Hebrews who proposed the first real monotheism as we recognise it today. Scholars would say that they build upon the ideas first proposed by Akenaten, who tried to force the worship of one god, Aten, upon the polytheist Egyptians. Interestingly, his effort to do this might well have been a way of strengthening power around himself rather than because of a spiritual experience with this deity.

In whatever form it takes, what’s interesting is that monotheism tries to put a name to the Ineffable. And by putting a name to God, or by conflating all the attributes of the different gods into the one eternal Creator, they actually produced a form of idolatry. Because once the Unnameable can be named, in our minds it becomes something comprehensible, but something much less than it really is. As Lao Tzu says in one translation:

“The God which can be named is not the true God. The name which can be named is not the true name.”

It’s also worrying how easily a claim to monotheism can be used by those in power (whether politically or religiously) to oppress and dis-empower other worshipers. It plays right into human egoism.

Also, although the three big monotheisms of our day claim to worship only one God, they also frequently recognise the existence of other spiritual entities such as angels and demons. Some go further than others in naming and giving qualities to these spiritual beings. Some even divinise human saints into spiritual beings too, ones to whom we can pray. This effectively serves the same purpose to the supplicant as the various goddesses and gods of any pantheistic pantheon do, it provides an intermediary between the supplicant and the transcendent, all-powerful (but unapproachable) God.

It’s only the extreme monotheists who reject these other spiritual entities or archetypes. But rather than conflating all the qualities of the divine into their heavenly father figure, they tend to unconsciously focus on the judgemental male kingly figure who is to be feared and not loved. These fundamentalists are also the most zealous of proselytizers, wanting to force their judgemental male deity on everyone else. In may ways they embody the extremes of unbridled masculinity, without tempering them with the balancing feminine aspects which are actually present in their scriptures, and in the more mystical forms of spirituality (such as grace, love, compassion, kindness etc).

Creation, the living universe, is cited as the first revelation of God in all three monotheisms. When one spends time meditating in nature, the multiplicity of forms in nature become very obvious. There are so many creatures, insects, birds, trees, plants and so on that the breadth and depth and creativity of God, the Source of all life, really come into focus. If the earth we know is an out-flowing of the creativity of God, then God must be so much more than this too. And that’s why extreme monotheism is a human construct: it narrows God down into one thing (usually a male thing), one aspect of creation, at the expense of all others.

The denial of the feminine side of God is one of the first consequences of extremist monotheism. Some of it’s fruits are the oppression of women, of the earth, and of all creatures. Fully half of the human population has suffered from the unbalanced view of God-as-male. Anyone who has watched animals at play, who has admired birds dancing to attract a mate, who has seen animals mating or wondered at bees naturally taking part in the sexual reproductive acts of flowers as they pollinate them, knows that the creator must be just as much female as male, to have created all of this. In fact, the creator of all these ecosystems must surely be balanced and yet transcend the polarities of masculine and feminine.

Interestingly, the normal place of worship for believers of all three monotheisms is indoors, cut off from sight of creation. Stone walls, carpets, stained glass windows portraying human saints, it’s all artificial, and far removed from the beauty of the natural world. I wonder what difference our view of God would hold if our normal place of worship was outside, amongst the multitudes of natural forms, amongst the thousands and millions of creatures in all their diversity.

An ancient text from hermeticism says that the key to all understanding is in this phrase: “As above, so below.”

Here “below”, in the physical universe, we have a multitude of creatures. Is it not so “above” too?

I’m not proposing that thousands of invisible spiritual entities (angels, demons, goddesses and gods) are somehow equal to the creator. But I do think that the extreme forms of monotheism which reject or remain silent about these spiritual entities are a human construct.

One way to understand God better is to understand her world better (see how uncomfortable it feels to use the word “her” to refer to God?). I think we should realise that no imaginings of our own, no traditions handed down to us by humans, are ever going to be more than a shadow of the mystery of who she/he/it/God actually is.

To quote Lao Tzu again:

“Mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness, the Gateway to all understanding.”

I think that the mystics understood this. I’m hoping that we can to, in order to learn to love one another, and the earth, and all creatures, as we should. It’s really needed in this world, where our natural tendency is to kill and destroy others who don’t agree exactly with us. I think we need to all be able to stand in awe of the transcendent mystery which we might call God, and share that awe and wonder with each other, rather than killing each other because we don’t all see alike.

Peace and blessings upon you today.